


Of Roses and Chocolate

by leopion



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Compliancy: DH EWE?, Compliancy: DH with Epilogue, Compliancy: HBP, Drama, F/M, Psychological Trauma, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-19
Updated: 2012-06-18
Packaged: 2017-11-08 02:11:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leopion/pseuds/leopion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A set of 4 angsty drabbles written for Valentine's Day Challenge 2012 at Dramione Drabbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rose of Tears

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** In its use of intellectual property and characters belonging to JK Rowling, Warner Bros, Bloomsbury Publishing, et cetera, this work is intended to be transformative commentary on the original. No profit is being made from this work.
> 
> No fluff for Valentine's Day, sadly. It's been an awesome fest, though, despite the fact that I couldn't participate in all seven prompts. After all, I did manage to carry out a sort-of writing experiment. Plus, the support at Dramione Drabbles has been amazing :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for prompt 1: Roses/detention/antidote  
>  _He was coughing up blood._  
> 

He was coughing up blood.

Crimson splashes were already scattered on his grey shirt and the beige cover of her couch, as she raced past the mound of potion ingredients and utensils towards him. She had barely eased him back to rest when another coughing fit erupted. Her hand trembled under the now blood-soaked cloth that she’d just pressed to his lips.

‘It’s alright,’ she whispered, between her own hiccups. ‘I’m here.’

Maybe it was more for her sake than for his. Consciousness had abandoned him a long while ago, and the fever was getting worse. Her very last doubt as to which poison had been used withered away. It was one of the rare cases where Bezoars were rendered useless. For once, she wished for blissful ignorance. Then, she wouldn’t have known how it would end—a painful, gory end.

Her heart throbbed as another confirmation echoed in her mind. She was still in love with him.

It had all started unexpectedly, with a single rose slipped into her bag on Valentine's Day, after the detention which—she later suspected—he’d deliberately landed them in. She’d thought that it had ended—just as abruptly—the night when Death Eaters penetrated the school. He had failed to complete Voldemort’s mission, but also failed to accept Dumbledore’s help. She knew he would have, if only the Death Eaters hadn't intruded. The rose—charmed to be ever-lasting—she cradled on her pillow that night while crying herself to sleep.

She had never heard of him since. Until tonight. She was supposed to wait for an informant to bring news about the next Death Eaters’ attack.

It didn’t take a genius to put the pieces together and figure out why he had ended up at her doorstep. But none of it mattered now. Her only straight thought was that he was dying on her couch, and her cauldron of antidote was still one ingredient short. _La rose des larmes._

How could she find a 'rose of tears’? Her only useful reference, _Les poisons vicieux_ , did not specify. Just like before, he was about to leave her with only a single rose as a remembrance.

That was when it hit her. Could the one rose that had been soaked in her tears countless times satisfy the requirement? She divided her half-made potion into two cauldrons, lunged for her beaded bag, and searched its contents frantically for the rose. She separated the scarlet petals from the stem—seven of them—and released them into one of the cauldrons.

Her breath caught.

The potion turned the perfect shade of amber.


	2. Chocolate from Dreamland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for prompt 2: chocolate/sexy/Daydream charm
> 
>  _She was being difficult._  
>  **Notes/Warnings:** (What could have been) sexy time interrupted (because I just love being an absolute killjoy) and an apparent violation of the exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration.  
> 

She was being difficult. Then again, he had never expected anything less.

After all, his initial attempt had ended up with her sitting at her desk, her eyes glued to some sort of report the entire time. She’d barely been there, let alone acknowledged his presence across the room. He’d kept trying, however. As a reward, he’d almost jumped with joy the first time she’d looked up and raised an eyebrow at him. After that day, there’d always been those little things indicating that she’d noticed him. Before long, they’d started trading barbs. Then they’d flirted. And he knew he was falling, all over again.

Today, though, she didn’t respond to his greeting. He’d known beforehand that sometimes there could be a setback, and he was willing to start over. But his heart still ached because it was St Valentine’s Day. He had made sure that the dates coincided.

He appeared with a box of Belgian chocolate in his hands, as clichéd as it may seem. There were only the two of them in the office as usual. Now and again, he wondered why she hadn’t noticed and asked him about it, but perhaps they had yet to reach that point. He needed to be more patient.

He approached her desk and placed the gift awkwardly on one corner.

‘For you,’ he said softly, his eyes focusing on her face. Even then she did not look up. So, he stood there and waited. He knew better than pushing too far and destroying all the progress they had made.

When he finally sighed and turned towards his own desk, her voice made him stop in his tracks.

‘You’re giving up.’ The accusation in her tone, however light, tore at his heart.

‘I would never,’ he replied, wheeling around to face her.

A smile slowly lit up her features—the sly smile that he’d missed so much. ‘Come here then.’

He smirked in return, feeling bits of the old him coming back.

Within a heartbeat, her loose bun turned into silky waves of dark curls, chasing one after another to eventually reach her shoulders. Her hand followed. Slender fingers lightly brushed the side of her cheek, the soft skin on her neck, and then finished their flourish at her shirt collar, allowing him the tiniest glimpse of heavens.

‘Only you can manage to look ravishing in those hideous work clothes,’ he mused aloud.

‘That does get a little bit old, don’t you think?’

His heart skipped a beat. He had never told her that. Not in here.

She reached for the box of chocolate, effectively claiming his attention again. The way she devoured the piece of confectionery made him want to kiss her right then and there.

And he did.

It was—in a sense—their first kiss, yet his skin was already on fire.

‘Delectable,’ he murmured into her mouth.

‘Liar,’ she whispered back. ‘It’s your least favourite flavour.’

He knew she did it on purpose. He knew she would hide his favourite and make him wait until the very end. He didn’t care. All he needed was her.

‘Not the choc—’

It felt as though someone had dumped cold water onto his head. Time was up.

Still, he smiled—the first _real_ smile in months. This had been the most interaction they’d got ever since he’d approached George Weasley for the modified version of the Daydream Charms. One day, the connection between them would grow strong enough for him to pull her out of the abyss of her subconscious—back to reality.

He opened his eyes and looked down at their entwined hands on the side of the hospital bed, surprised at the tiny object stuck between them. A piece of chocolate. Could it be her accidental magic?

He could only convince himself once the last of the chocolate melted in his mouth.

 _Manon Noir_. His very favourite.


	3. Pink on White

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for prompt 5: pink/kitten/Pensieve  
>  _It was a mistake._  
> 

It was a mistake. He was where he wasn't supposed to be.

The closet was dark. He wouldn't have recognised her had he not spent half of his life skulking in the darkness. She, on the other hand, was accustomed to the light.

He was hiding from the press and their thirst for news about his pardon while she... He didn't know until her lips were all he could feel. His body gave in to the temptation for a moment before he choked out a lame excuse ( _I have to go._ ).

He couldn't tell whether she caught a glimpse of blond hair when he slipped out of the room or whether Weasley ever mentioned the lack of a Valentine's Day surprise from her part. He never asked. He could not stand the way she looked at him the next time they met, as though he was a stray kitten she took pity on.

He went home and destroyed the only physical proof of their encounter—her lipstick smear on his shirt ( _Scourfigy_ : twice, elf-clean: three times). Yet, everything kept circling in his head—the rosy dash of pink on white, the perfect shape of her lips, and their softness pressing against his own.

Now, he's forced it all to circle at the bottom of a grim stone basin instead—one last time before being buried in the depth of his old trunk. He needs to let go because today she will walk down that fated aisle. And he won't be the one waiting at the end.


	4. Stilettos in Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for prompt 6: stilettos/ stocking/ Invisibility Cloak  
>  _It is an infatuation._  
> 

It is an infatuation. She knows it won’t last. Or that is what she keeps telling herself anyway.

She can’t pinpoint the reason for her sudden attraction to him really. It can’t be his looks. If it were, she would have fallen for him a decade ago. He looks older and more mature now, of course, but they all do after the war. It certainly can’t be good conversations. Those are civil now—which is something new—though they contain little more than the polite greetings and some administrative issues. They never discuss their work due to different research areas and, obviously, the fact that they are both Unspeakables. She has seen him work through the lab window, however—seen his fingers handling the various vials so gently his touch almost seems like a caress, seen his blond brows furrowing in concentration at a hard problem, and seen his grey eyes lighting up at the wonder he’s just discovered. He isn’t aware of her or of anyone else then, and it’s fine by her. She probably does the same every time she sets foot in her lab.

***

She goes to the Ministry Ball alone. It’s not that no one wants to be her date. She just dreads the implication of going together on St Valentine’s Day.

Once she has finished wrestling with her disobedient hair (a French twist with a few strands of curls framing her face), the preparation seems much easier. She picks out a halter-top dress made of sky-blue silk that falls just above her knees at the front but trails down at the back and flows behind her. The outfit is then completed with a slightly darker velvet wrap, silver filigree earrings (but no necklace), and pair of matching blue stilettos. She’s always known that blue suits her, as evident during the Yule Ball. Nevertheless, a tiny part of her attests that her choice of colour has more to do with an absentminded comment of his the other day. She used to think his favourite colour was green or silver or even black.

***

He’s already there when she arrives. Her war hero status guarantees that her entrance attracts not a little attention, but she only cares about his. He politely inclines his head at her direction before turning back to some Ministry workers she does not know. She feels her heart sink a little, but at least he appears to have come alone.

Half an hour later, she finds herself talking to him and a few other colleagues. He is polite as usual, but his mind seems to be elsewhere. Among the pleasantries and strictly non-work-related conversations, she wishes he would just ignore her. That way she would know that it was deliberate, that he actually noticed her. In reality, he sees her but doesn’t really look at her. It makes her feel more invisible than when she was hiding under Harry’s cloak.

Her breath hitches as she notices, finally notices the source of his distraction across the room and the way he looks at _her_. She does not cry, but she suspects her voice might have cracked a little as she excuses herself from the group.

She cannot trust herself to walk on those high and pointy heels anymore, so she slips out of them and makes her way to the Apparition point. Somehow, her heart feels colder than her stocking feet on the marble floor.


End file.
